Bobby R. Inman, who weathered his own turbulent period as N.S.A. director from 1977 to 1981, offers his hyper-secret former agency a radical suggestion for right now. “My advice would be to take everything you think Snowden has and get it out yourself,” he said. “It would certainly be a shock to the agency. But bad news doesn’t get better with age. The sooner they get it out and put it behind them, the faster they can begin to rebuild.”

Of course, that only works if the NSA isn’t engaged in blatantly illegal conduct …

Or because the only possible reason for spying on every electronic communication that hundreds of millions of people are doing, is the same reason that the Stasi conducted Mass Surveillance – to suppress domestic political dissent.

Which taken together with the catalog of all of the other civil rights abuses conducted during Obama’s term, tears down all the protections for ordinary people necessary for a democratic rather than despotic society.

Blatantly illegal conduct…??? Like Tuesday “hit” meetings, where “Don” Obama and his consiglieres decide who to whack this week?

colinjames71

I don’t think Snowden is a plant, though the slow trickle of release by the papers could be construed as conditioning society. It’s costing our tech sector too much money, for one. Too much disclosure, on top of that. I don’t think they would intentionally put out there that we’re spying on Merkel’s cell phone, among other things.

As to getting out what they THINK Snowden has, they must know for sure, now if not sooner, at least since picking up Miranda. Plus they have the papers already self-censoring some of it. But who knows, Greenwald might milk this thing for years… what was it, ~50 years til full disclosure based on the rate of release?

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